


Just Another Always

by Elliott_Fletcher



Series: The Line of Youth [1]
Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6723967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elliott_Fletcher/pseuds/Elliott_Fletcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Izumi always swallows Mizutani's words without reading them, hearing them, and Mizutani always promises not to float away before Izumi's ready to let go.</p><p>Or: the Childhood Friends AU nobody asked for, but I felt obliged to write about, regardless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Always

**Author's Note:**

> Mizutani needs a freaking paper weight; that's where Izumi comes in handy. . . .

Mizutani's hands sweat profusely whenever they're beside each other for morning practice. It doesn't gross Izumi out like Mizutani always worries it does. It just . . . It reminds him how human Mizutani really is, even when he seems to belong among the clouds—that's where his head is most of the time—and the stars, and the sun, and all the things that float up there that no one ever acknowledges. Izumi wants to shout that he acknowledges _so much, so, so much,_ even if it's Mizutani's empty head, full of air and weightless, that he's acknowledging. He's not sure if that's even what Mizutani wants him to notice, with him always pretending to not be the goofy dork he is, what with his four-leaf clovers, sand dollars, and 'lucky notes.' That useless superstition is pretty much the only substance in his floating brain, and it's probably the reason for the divorce between head and body.

  
        _Lighter than helium,_ Izumi thinks, and loses himself in the slow pace of their synchronized steps. He's the only thing keeping Mizutani from completely floating away, but even still . . . Sometimes Izumi thinks Mizutani's hovering an inch above the ground, but then he'll blink, hold his hand tighter, earning a comforting squeeze in reply, and Mizutani will have his feet planted firmly once again. It makes Izumi sad knowing that someday he'll leave him for the stars and sun; Izumi mulls it over a little longer and realizes he'd probably jump at the opportunity to swap Mizutani for the Residents of the Heavens.

  
        Izumi's never understood it; ever since they were kids, Mizutani's been this way—walking on an inch of air, not even the half-dozen sand dollars in his pockets weighing him down, a four-leaf clover (mind you, one created with scotch tape) tucked behind his ear (they disappear in his thick hair sometimes, and Izumi pretends he doesn't enjoy untangling the green from Mizutani's contrasting red). Izumi, who ignores most of the nonsense now, but used to argue adhamently against the fantasies, is a man of logic, not superstition, but even he accepts that Mizutani is good for him, as they are each other.

  
        The sand of the field billows under their feet, and Mizutani, who always walks in front of Izumi, stares at his cleats; Izumi stares at the smooth expanse of dirt-stained fabric between Mizutani's shoulder blades, and he pretends he hasn't— _they haven't_ —been doing this for a decade. It's all always. Every time. Mizutani _always_ walks in front of Izumi. Izumi _always_ stands next to Mizutani at practice, holding his hand, clammy, sweaty, and warm— _always_ helps him stretch, because he knows Mizutani's too ticklish to trust anyone other than him to touch his body. It's always been always, ever since they were five.

  
        This is the first time Izumi notices the sky, though, and that's only because Mizutani mentions the _purpleblueorange_ hue and comments on its unusualness. Izumi swallows, his gaze torn away from dirt-stained fabric and now stuck on the setting sun, which is burning his vision at this very moment. But he can't look away; he can't, at least, until he feels Mizutani smile, feels it radiate from him brighter than the sun, and Izumi realizes that if he goes blind from staring at this sun, he'll never have a chance to see that gorgeous smile again. So he jumps from the frying pan into the fire and looks Mizutani square in the mouth, where his lips are stretching, cracking in a way that looks so painful but _so welcoming_ , and Izumi wants to kiss him—but then Mizutani is gone, and that smile is gone with him.

  
        Mizutani is on his hands and knees, pawing through the outfield's overgrown grass. He's searching, content, and humming—Izumi smiles knowingly, because _of course_ Mizutani needs to find a four-leaf clover at _eight o'clock in the evening_ , when they should really be showering and heading home to a late dinner. _Of course_. Izumi doesn't mind, though, because when Mizutani stands up again, triumphant and with an even larger smile breaking his face in half, he turns to Izumi. And Izumi thinks he just traded Mizutani for the Heavens, because that is _exactly_ what is before his eyes at this very moment.

  
        Mizutani has the kind of hands that look like a child's. Izumi remembers the exact day Mizutani started the habit of biting his nails (it was because the girl he liked did it, too, and he wanted to have something in common with her, the idiot) and the cause of each of the wounds that lay under the adhesive bandages on his thumb and index finger (they tried to help make dinner and vowed never to again). He knows, _he knows_ —but if he knows so well, then why do these hands feel so new when they're roaming his face like that? When they're in his hair and _cardingandmessingand_ —Mizutani tucks the stem of a four-leaf clover behind Izumi's ear, and now they're both blushing and dorks. Izumi leans his forehead against Mizutani's, and they breathe together for a while.

  
        And then their hands find each other, and they continue their walk to that old oak tree at the back of the field, past the fence and a little ways on after that. They never notice how long the walk actually is, but it's tradition, and Izumi doesn't care because he gets to hold Mizutani's hand the whole way. Mizutani usually shakes him off after a while, too restless and floating to be held down so constantly, but this walk is _sacred_ , and Izumi isn't cheated out of a single second of it.

  
        Izumi imagines how boring it would be to stay planted so firmly on the ground, and then he realizes that that's exactly how he's living at this moment. He hangs his head, watching his feet while Mizutani stares at the stars, and he realizes how different they are. He decides he's going to let Mizutani go one day, because he loves him and more than anything wants for him to live a not-boring life.

  
        He feels Mizutani squeeze his hand, and Izumi snaps his head up. He sees the old oak tree immediately, his gaze drawn to it and sucked in like a vacuum. The tree is so dark in this light, and it's entrancing and mysterious like it always is; it sucks Izumi in. Mizutani smiles, and it's like a flashlight in his face, and then it's turned on the bark, and Izumi can see their old carvings. No, not hearts with arrows and initials, but something much more important to them; all the thought put into the carving . . . Izumi remembers every second of that day. He often replays it before he falls asleep.

  
        Mizutani had practically forced a pencil into his hands in a far-off morning (Mizutani had seen Izumi's drawings in a sketch pad Izumi thought he had Mizutani-proofed—apparently, not even the underside of his mattress was safe). Mizutani had wanted him to draw on some old tree he liked to visit; that's when it became _their_ tree. So Izumi drew, and Mizutani attempted to carve (six bandaids were needed that day), and they've come back every day since.

  
        They're joined at the hip, leaning against the carved bark, and Mizutani's opened up a notebook. Izumi looks away, because he knows the drill after a long, long decade of traditions and superstition. He hears the familiar tear of paper, and then his hand is opened, palm up, and crinkling paper is pushed into his skin. It's a small piece, because Mizutani has learned how to write his characters smaller and neater over the years, and Izumi doesn't have any trouble bringing it to his mouth, dissolving it in saliva, and swallowing. They've been doing this for years, so Izumi's gotten used to it by now. _It's just another always,_ he thinks, and he wonders what Mizutani couldn't say this time. _It's probably another confession of his love,_ Izumi thinks. Mizutani's always doing that. Izumi wishes Mizutani could just tell him he loves him, like Izumi has no trouble doing, but he also feels like he'd miss this. _I'd miss swallowing gross, stiff paper and lead that is probably detrimental to my health,_ Izumi thinks. _I'm really far gone_.

(Izumi _always_ swallows Mizutani's words without reading them, hearing them, and Mizutani _always_ promises not to float away before Izumi's ready to let go.)

They trace the jagged, inexperienced lines of their carving, following them and memorizing them. It's a picture of two hands, impossibly small and childish, clasped together with intent and something more that rings at the tip of Izumi's tongue as an _always_. They mirror the image with their own hands, larger and with less bandages, and with a lot more intent and a larger, broader _always_.

  
        Mizutani's head is heavy on Izumi's shoulder, and they count cars as they pass, bicycles, pedestrians—and their eyes blur, but their hearts beat in sync, much like their steps that fall so naturally together, and Izumi knows it's the ten years together that allow them to not be two friends, but one being, _one soul_.

  
        "Always," he hears, whispered like they haven't been shouting it from rooftops since they were five—like it's actually a delicate secret. Izumi leans in and swallows this secret from Mizutani's lips. He decides he wouldn't trade Mizutani for the heavens, because then he wouldn't have anyone to share it with, and he decides that _no_ , he's _not_ going to _ever_ give Mizutani up, and he decides that he's just going to have to kick off the ground and make himself cozy in the clouds with Mizutani's superstition-filled head, because he is _never_ — _ever_ —letting go.


End file.
